


As Long As You Want

by salainen



Category: Team Fortress 2
Genre: Fluff, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-11
Updated: 2014-08-11
Packaged: 2018-02-12 15:39:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,113
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2115483
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/salainen/pseuds/salainen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The first five times Engie and Pyro ever held hands.</p>
            </blockquote>





	As Long As You Want

**Author's Note:**

> For an anon on Tumblr! Hope you like it.
> 
> Also, for ease of reading, you can hover over Pyro's dialogue to have it "unmasked".

The first time they ever hold hands is in the infirmary.

Pyro staggers in at the end of the day, clutching their left arm with their right hand, and runs right into Medic and Engineer, the two of them chatting amiably over coffee.

“Mrr rrm hrrts,” they mumble, looking up at Medic. Despite the mask, Engie feels the plaintive stare all the same.

“What happened, partner?” he asks, a reassuring hand on their good shoulder. He can guess, since they lost the day's match, and he didn't see Pyro scrambling into the base with the rest of them once the other team started celebrating their victory with wanton violence, but he asks anyway.

“Scrrt,” they answer. “Thrr rrthrr Scrrt, Rr mrrn. Hrrt mrr wrrth thrr brrt. Rrngie, rrt hrrts.”

“Likely a fracture,” Medic says. “Sit on the table.” He starts wheeling over the x-ray machine.

Pyro grabs at Engie, scared of the huge device. “Woah, there, buddy, it's fine,” he says, leading them gently over to the table. “The doc just needs to look at your arm for a second. I'll be here the whole time.”

“Yrr prrmrrse?” Pyro asks.

As if Engie could say no to those big, sad lenses. “I promise. Hop up there and let Medic do his work, all right?” He has to lend a hand, since one of Pyro's arms is essentially useless, but they get up, and Medic can lay their arm on the glass of the machine.

“Rr'm scrred,” they say, quietly.

“It's okay,” Engie says. “Here.” He puts his hand in Pyro's uninjured one and lets them squeeze it. There's a quiet squeak from the collision of their gloves.

The x-ray machine flashes a bit of light and takes the photo of their arm bones, spitting it out almost immediately. Engie feels a flare of pride, having built the device himself a few months ago. He's never seen it in action before.

“Your arm appears to be broken,” Medic says, examining the x-ray. Even Engie can see where the bone is fractured when he holds it up to the light. “Luckily for you, I can fix that quite easily.” He reaches up for the ceiling-mounted medi-gun, aiming it at the location of the break. 

A few seconds of that, and Pyro is good as new, flexing their hand and rolling their shoulder. They seem a little surprised that it worked – Engie admires that about Pyro, that they still see so much wonder in things. A mechanical mind and a lifetime of academics has stripped that from Engie; he just sees _how_ and _why_ instead of mystery and marvel.

“What do you say,” Engie prompts, grinning at his friend's reaction.

“Thrrnk yrr, Mrrdrrc.” They climb down from the examination table. “Rrnd thrrnk yrr, Rrngie.”

Having learned their lesson from a previous incident, Pyro leaves it at that for Medic, but pulls Engie into a tight hug. Engie returns the gesture, patting Pyro on the back. “You're welcome, partner.”

* * *

The second time is on the battlefield.

“Crrm rrn, Rrngie, wrr nrrd trr grr!” Pyro says, pulling ineffectually at Engie's upper arm. “Thrr's trr mrrny rrf thrrm!”

There are certainly a lot of opposing forces approaching. Probably the whole enemy team, if Engie's calculations are right (and they usually are). But their team is nowhere to be seen, leaving his sentry and Pyro's flamethrower the only defences at this point. He can't leave; everything will be destroyed, and they'll lose the point.

“Plrrse, Rrngie. Crrm wrrth mrr,” Pyro continues to plead, still yanking at him as he repairs the damage done by the other team's Sniper. “Wrr crrn't drr thrrs alrrne.”

“No, but no one else is here! We have to defend!”

The other team is getting closer, but there's still time. When Engie swings the wrench, Pyro grabs him by the wrist, wrestles the wrench away, and takes his hand. “Plrrse. _Plrrse._ ” He looks up into Pyro's face. “Yrr crrn brrld rrgrrn rrt thrr nrrxt prrnt. Jrrst crrme wrrth mrr!”

Nobody else on the team has this kind of effect on Engie. He's got a stubborn streak a mile wide, and he can outlast nearly anyone and withstand nearly any plea, but he's helpless before Pyro. Even though their face is perpetually hidden and voice muffled, he always feels like he knows exactly what expression they're wearing, that he can see their shiny, tear-filled eyes when they ask him to do something.

“Aw, hell,” he says, getting up. “We better get moving if we want to stay out of Respawn.”

Pyro immediately takes off, pulling him along by the hand. Engie has to run as fast as he can go to keep up. As they put more distance between themselves and the enemy team, Pyro's mood begins to lighten, muffled laughter escaping from the air filters of their gasmask. He knows it's not at anything in particular; Pyro's just very free with their happiness. It's contagious, and soon the both of them are running side-by-side, laughing and smiling. 

It's not until they reach a new place to build on that Engie realizes neither of them ever disentangled their fingers.

“Thanks, Py,” he says. “I was being a fool. You saved my life.”

“Yrrp,” they say.

“Modest, aren't we.”

Pyro shrugs.

“Better get to work,” he says, unlinking their hands with a final squeeze. “See if you can't find out what happened to the rest of the team, huh?”

“Nrr.”

“What do you mean, no?” Engie asks, setting up a dispenser.

“Hrrve trr strry wrrth yrr. Prrtrrct yrr rrnd thrr brrldrrngs.”

He's getting that puppy-dog expression feeling again.

“All right, we can wait for them together.”

* * *

The third time is an odd circumstance.

“Yrr wrrnt mrr trr _whrrt_?!” Pyro asks, hands flapping in terror.

“I need you to hold my hand,” Engie says, patiently, “like this.”

“Brrt – brrt – brrt,” Pyro stammers, “Rr crrn't drr thrrt!”

“Why not?”

“Brrcrrse, Rrngie, yrr're _crrttrrng rrff yrr hrrnd!_ ”

“Well, yeah. How else am I going to get this on?” he asks, holding up the recently-completed Gunslinger. “Please, Py, I need your help. I don't want to ask the doc to do this when I can do it myself. But I need help, and you're my best friend.”

“Yrr've grrne crrzy,” they say. “Rr'm nrrt grrng trr hrrld yrr hrrnd whrrn yrr chrrp rrt rrff!”

“You chop people's parts off all the time with that axe of yours,” Engie argues.

“Nrrt yrr prrts.”

“What's the difference?”

“Rr lrrke yrr. Rr drrn't lrrke thrr prrple Rr crrt rrp.”

“When you put it like that,” he says, and lets out a sigh. “You're right. I shouldn't have asked you to do something like that. Lord knows I couldn't do anything like this to you.”

“Thrrnk yrr.”

“I'll ask Medic to do it for me tomorrow.”

“Grrd.”

“Will you come with me?”

“Yrrh, srre,” Pyro says. “Brrt rrnly rrf Rr drrn't hrrve trr hrrld yrr hrrnd whrrn Mrrdrrc crrts rrt rrff.”

“Nah, you can hold the other one,” Engie says, grinning crookedly so Pyro knows he's kidding.

They still take hold of his left hand while Medic amputates the right (both of them think it's with far too much vigour), late the next night.

* * *

The fourth time is outside in the snow.

Engie's traipsing around, looking for a metal supply to upgrade his teleporter with, when he hears it.

“Rrngie.”

“Pyro? That you, partner?” He looks around, but he doesn't see anything until he looks down. There's a thick trail of blood leading off to Engie's left, and he immediately abandons his search for metal to search for Pyro instead.

He finds them, lying there, staring at the sky, snowflakes melting on the fogged-up lenses of their mask. Their suit is blackened and torn in places – bullet holes, if Engie is right. “Rr'm dyrrng,” they say, turning their head a bit to look at Engie instead of straight up.

“Yeah. Yeah, I think you are,” he says, gently, kneeling down beside Pyro. There's a lot of blood lying around, and more is seeping through the holes in their suit, and though he's radioed in a call for Medic, there's no way he's getting to their location before Pyro dies. There's nothing to do but wait.

“Drrn't lrrve,” Pyro says, reaching for him. Engie meets it with his own hand, and it's the first time since having it installed that he regrets the Gunslinger. The cold metal of it can't be comforting, especially to someone who loves warmth as much as Pyro.

“I won't go anywhere, partner,” he says, adding his flesh-and-blood hand to cover Pyro's completely. “I can wait with you.”

As far as he knows, they've got a good defense going, even with his tiny mini-sentry. He can risk it. Hell, even if he _couldn't_ he wouldn't leave Pyro now. Dying always creates this creeping darkness, he finds, and it sinks into every part of a person as they go. It's the single most terrifying experience on this Earth, and he'd rather earn himself another round of it than leave Pyro to face it alone. There's almost nothing he wouldn't do for them, if they asked him to.

“Rr'm crrld.”

“I know, darlin',” he says, the endearment unintentional but not unfelt. “But you'll be lighting stuff up real soon, and ain't nobody going to be cold then.”

They huff a small laugh. “Rr'm glrrd yrr're hrre.”

“Me too.”

It's always hard to tell when they've passed, when they die slow like this, because of the mask, but with their hand clenching tightly around his it becomes easier to tell. Engie keeps a hold on their slack hand until Respawn comes to sweep them away, and if he has to push up his goggles and wipe his eyes once they're gone that's no one's business but his own.

* * *

The fifth time is on a quiet summer night.

“It's mighty nice out tonight,” Engie says, leaning up on the back of the couch Pyro's sitting on. “Thought we might head outside.”

“Frre?” Pyro asks, and Engie can just _see_ the hopeful look, even if he doesn't rightly know what Pyro looks like.

“Yeah, sure, we can have a fire,” he says. “I'm bringing the extinguisher, though.”

Pyro crosses their arms with a _hrmph_.

Outside, they mostly sit in a comfortable silence, just the sounds of the campfire Pyro built crackling away. It's not really necessary for them to talk much, given that they spend most of their time together anyway.

Inside the base, someone's turned on a record, the sound drifting out the open window. Engie recognizes it as a few years old, a song he had really liked at the time, though he'd never admit it. Too silly.

_Oh, yeah, I'll tell you something  
I think you'll understand..._

He laughs a little. Whoever's put that on must know he and Pyro are sitting out here, next to each other on a fallen log. He tries to look through the window to see who it is, but no one's visible.

“Whrrt's srr frrnny?” Pyro asks, a tilt to their head.

“Whoever's on the record player's got a sense of humour,” he says.

Pyro keeps looking at him. He feels the force of their furrowed eyebrows, though the gasmask is as placid as ever.

“Just listen.”

_Oh, please, say to me_  
 _You'll let me be your man_  
 _And please, say to me,_  
 _You'll let me hold your hand_

Pyro claps their hands over their mouth. Engie fancies they're blushing a little. He offers a hand, palm up.

At Engie's wordless question, Pyro lowers their hands from their face, tentatively resting one on Engie's proffered one. He intertwines their fingers. They move closer. He bridges the gap in full. They put their head on his shoulder, their clasped hands resting on Engie's leg.

“Rr lrrke yrr,” Pyro whispers after a moment, like it's a secret. “Lrrke-lrrke yrr, Rr mrrn.”

“I like-like you too, Py,” he says.

“Yrr drr?”

The sheer surprise in Pyro's voice nearly breaks his heart. How could they think he didn't feel the same way? “Of course! You're my partner and my best friend and cute as a button besides. I think if I loved you any more I'd have to build myself another heart.”

If not for the mask, he thinks Pyro would have given him a kiss for that, but instead they reach up with their free hand to embrace him, nuzzling his neck for good measure, then settle back to where they were on his shoulder.

“Rr drr wrrnnrr hrrld yrr hrrnd.”

“For as long as you want, darlin'.”

The record switches to a different song, but they remain exactly as they were.


End file.
